AIA condemn the Free State Army and judiciary for letting off their soldier Cathal Crotty with scarcely a slap on the wrist following the vicious assault on Natasha O’Brien and beating her within an inch of her life, in no just society would he be left to walk the streets.
Since 1922, the Free State Army has been full of depraved men like Cathal Crotty, a semicolonial militia of cowards, traitors and heartless killers. So-called “Defence Forces”, in reality it is a semicolonial militia formed to carry out the counter-revolution and defend the interests of British imperialism. Irish women paid dearly for its actions, denied the rights promised by the Peoples Republic.
For Cathal Crotty to be allowed to continue under them demonstrates that they are not out to “defend” the Irish people at all. We extend solidarity to Natasha O’Brien, left traumatised by this attack and like many other women left without any justice from the reactionary Free State. All the while, Cathal Crotty has been able to brag about his cruelty and get the sympathy of Free State Judges for pleading guilty.
When the legal system fails, it is up to our communities to push for justice. Proletarian feminist Anuradha Ghandy argued, in the absence of legal justice, to “mobilise the masses to take direct action […] at the local level”. She proposes that men like him “must be humiliated and publicly condemned and made to compensate and apologise to the victim” through social ostracisation and whatever other means necessary while continuing to agitate for legal change. Large rallies across the country (and especially in Limerick) in solidarity with O’Brien are to be commended, and further communities can and should shun him from all social spaces for his actions and to deter the same being done to others.
Violent men like Cathal Crotty need to be held accountable!
Ní saoirse go saoirse na mban!